NCJ Number
151475
Journal
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume: 86 Dated: (May 1993) Pages: 282-286
Date Published
1993
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Starting with the case histories of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and other famous British individuals, this paper discusses the 200-year history of drug abuse in Great Britain and other countries and concludes that drug abuse is probably the most serious health-related problem today, although many former addicts are useful members of society.
Abstract
Between 1814 and 1818, opium accounted for one-third of all trade between the East Indies and China. When China's emperor tried to enforce the country's ban on opium imports, Great Britain went to and won a war, resulting in the continuation of the opium trade. As a 1970 painting by Degas indicates, alcohol had been a problem for many centuries. Attention next turned to South America, where miners in Bolivia and Peru were sustained by chewing coca leaf. In 1884, Freud published a major paper advocating its use as a cure for morphine addiction. He recanted this position in 1887, but continued to take cocaine. Sherlock Holmes is the most famous literary figure who used cocaine. In 1906, the Chinese government prohibited opium consumption and poppy cultivation. The 1909 Shanghai Conference resulted in the signing of the Hague Convention in 1912. The United States introduced prohibition of narcotics, cocaine, and alcohol in 1920; it remained in effect until 1933. In the United Kingdom, the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920 controlled drug issues. In Egypt, nearly one-third of the prison inmates in 1929 had been convicted under the narcotics law. During the Vietnam War, 40 percent of American soldiers used heroin, but only 7 percent were still using drugs 1 year after returning home. By 1980, cocaine was viewed as a sophisticated drug; attitudes changed dramatically by 1986. Heroin addicts are now common in certain areas of inner London. After 200 years, we still have no adequate strategy to address drug abuse. Photographs, tables, and 20 references